Steyn: VA students guilty of ‘awful corrosive passivity.’
Steyn: VA students guilty of ‘awful corrosive passivity.’
National Review’s Mark Steyn adds his voice to the John Derbyshire-led chorus of conservatives blaming the victims at Virginia Tech:
I’m not sure I’m ready to go the full Derb but I think he’s closer to the reality of the situation than most. … Point one: They’re not “children.” The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and — if you’ll forgive the expression — men. [...]
We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. [...]
Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin joins the pack.
UPDATE II: Media Matters has a round-up.
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
This is simply an outstanding article. So true.
A Culture of Passivity “Protecting” our “children” at Virginia Tech.
By Mark Steyn
I haven’t weighed in yet on Virginia Tech — mainly because, in a saner world, it would not be the kind of incident one needed to have a partisan opinion on. But I was giving a couple of speeches in Minnesota yesterday and I was asked about it and found myself more and more disturbed by the tone of the coverage. I’m not sure I’m ready to go the full Derb but I think he’s closer to the reality of the situation than most. On Monday night, Geraldo was all over Fox News saying we have to accept that, in this horrible world we live in, our “children†need to be “protected.â€
Point one: They’re not “children.†The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and — if you’ll forgive the expression — men. They would be regarded as adults by any other society in the history of our planet. Granted, we live in a selectively infantilized culture where twentysomethings are “children†if they’re serving in the Third Infantry Division in Ramadi but grown-ups making rational choices if they drop to the broadloom in President Clinton’s Oval Office. Nonetheless, it’s deeply damaging to portray fit fully formed adults as children who need to be protected. We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible†world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act.
Point two: The cost of a “protected†society of eternal “children†is too high. Every December 6th, my own unmanned Dominion lowers its flags to half-mast and tries to saddle Canadian manhood in general with the blame for the “Montreal massacre,†the 14 female students of the Ecole Polytechnique murdered by Marc Lepine (born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, though you’d never know that from the press coverage). As I wrote up north a few years ago:
Yet the defining image of contemporary Canadian maleness is not M Lepine/Gharbi but the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female classmates to their fate — an act of abdication that would have been unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history. The “men†stood outside in the corridor and, even as they heard the first shots, they did nothing. And, when it was over and Gharbi walked out of the room and past them, they still did nothing. Whatever its other defects, Canadian manhood does not suffer from an excess of testosterone.
I have always believed America is different. Certainly on September 11th we understood. The only good news of the day came from the passengers who didn’t meekly follow the obsolescent 1970s hijack procedures but who used their wits and acted as free-born individuals. And a few months later as Richard Reid bent down and tried to light his shoe in that critical split-second even the French guys leapt up and pounded the bejasus out of him.
We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection†is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. As my distinguished compatriot Kathy Shaidle says:
When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstancesâ€, we make cowardice the default position.
I’d prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:03 pmThis coward would be the first to use others as a human shield if he was in the same situation.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:04 pmthis is the voice of the modern republican party
April 18th, 2007 at 2:04 pm“…where twentysomethings are “children†if they’re serving in the Third Infantry Division in Ramadi but grown-ups making rational choices if they drop to the broadloom in President Clinton’s Oval Office”
Priceless.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:04 pmWhen the American left has polluted our culture with a surrender mentality this article is timely indeed.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:05 pmWhat a douche. It’s pretty damn easy to be brave from the comfort of your office or gated community.
If the talk-radio conservatives want to line up against the victims of the worst shooting tragedy in the nation’s history I say go right ahead. It will only hasten their demise.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:06 pmWar is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded sense of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing _worth_ a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, –is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated _their_ ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
April 18th, 2007 at 2:07 pm–John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), “The Contest In America,” Fraser’s Magazine, February 1862 [reprinted in Mill's_Dissertations and Discussions, vol.1 p.26 (1868)] (as the title suggests, Mill is reflecting on the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War)
Well, this is who they are.
Some want to blame the guns, somw want to blame the those who didn’t “defend” themselves. Then there are those of us who want to blame the kid that actually did this. What a concept.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:07 pmIt is an interesting question indeed that the Olbermann crowd can’t answer. Why was a seventy-two year old holocaust survivor the only one to act in their own self-defense?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:09 pmwatchers on “24″ unite!!
April 18th, 2007 at 2:09 pmAll I can think to say is, these people on the right should be in Iraq. We could use thier bravado and leadership over there. Hell they might even throw themeselves of a few roadside bombs.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:09 pmBefore this wack-job opens his mouth with his hateful remarks, he should read how the victims re-acted. One faculty member blocked the door with his body and lost his life doing this. Several students held a door shut with injured hands and arms. Sounds like these victims reacted bravely.
This event was true “shock and awe” to the victims. Who the f**k would expect someone to walk in a classroom and start shooting. Next time, the shooter needs to stop by Steyn and Derby’s office. I want to hear how they subdued the shooter.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:09 pmPatrick
The fact that you are EXPLOITING a tragedy to make a POLITICAL ATTACK makes you no better than the lowest gutter-snipe.
Go back to your hole, you troll, lest my “passivity” dissipates and I pound you into a fine paste.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:10 pm“but…but…but…Clinton!” Patrick1’s favorite whine
April 18th, 2007 at 2:10 pmI’m torn between not really having an opinion and leaning towards wondering why more didn’t fight. But I didn’t need to write a whole essay to convey it.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:11 pmThe left doesn’t blame anyone but the gun. They don’t even want to call the nut “Asian”.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:11 pmSo this guy thinks we shouldn’t rely on “the state” to protect us. I wasn’t aware that is what we are doing by asking for proper regulations of dangerous goods, but whatever.
What I find insulting and ironic is that the same people who think that we should rely on “the (nation) state” to protect us every second of every minute of every day from terrorism. They are willing to sacrifice any and all civil liberties and rights to help the nanny-nation protect them from the chance some mean brown-skinned boogey man may come and attack us again. After all, we have to be defensive all the time and they only have to be right once.
BUT, the second something tragic happens to someone else, the right is suddenly blaming the victim. They are stupid for thinking the state can protect them. The state can’t protect them because the bad guys only need to slip through once for a tragedy to occur. It’s impossible and anyone who says otherwise is a sissy liberal expecting the state to protect them of every second of every day.
Am I missing something here, or how the rights hypcorist and willingness to politicize every tragedy hitting a new low?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:11 pmspeaking of ‘misfit loners’, someone’s obsessively cutting and pasting again.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:11 pmIt’s both sad and funny that the right-wing jumps on an angle that perpetuates the myth that a unending state of war and unceasingly violence should be expected as the norm.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:12 pmWay to go, Mark Steyn. There’s nothing better than a denunciation of passivity from a passive man who urges others to fight but does not himself, while according to himself the bravery of those who do. Good stuff.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:12 pmThis is simply an outstanding article. So true. — patrick-dumbass
you are as disgusting as the author of the article you pasted.
You probably have never been in a situation with an armed gunman trying to kill you. I have been in combat, and facing an armed assailant when you are unarmed would frighten you to your core.
Frankly, if you had been in that situation, you would have fled, or died.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:13 pmMe, I don’t know what I wouldhave done, it depends on what options were available. I would have probably tried to take him out, but the key issue, I was trained by the US Army to handle such situations, the Students were NOT.
The way the victims behaved is a reflection of our morally bankrupt leftwing culture. Steyn nails it brilliantly.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:14 pmPatrick1 is wrong. Others barricaded themselves in classrooms. The holocaust victim was not the only hero here. Can you blame students for not wanting to put themselves in harm’s way? I wonder what some of these righties blaming the victims were doing during Vietnam. Why aren’t they volunteering for duty in Iraq?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:14 pmthey are all sick psychos.
how would he react in a shower of bullets fired by a madman?
like a shwarzenegger movie or like a human?
what an idiot.
Old man Librescu knew how to react because he was probably one of the only people who had witnessed mass murder from rapid gunfire.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:14 pm“go the full Derb…”
April 18th, 2007 at 2:14 pmThanks for adding another cute quirky cliche to describe the corrosive passivity of the selectively infantalized culture you so eloquently drool.
It is your Republican “be kind to business” consumption driven corporate dumbed down advertisement sucking video game playing reality ignorant creation that leads us to what you purport to rail against.
“We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible†world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others.”
Is this not a true statement? How can the left say this is not true?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:15 pmYesterday the right-wing loonies were all over Cole for his parallels to the daily death in Iraq. It was disgusting to be using the tragedy for political gain.
But now that their overlords have got a talking point to push their agendas, suddenly all bets are off.
Clearly, the right-wing only finds the act of politicizing the issue offensive if they aren’t the ones doing it.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:15 pmSo we continue to fight them here, even though Bush said he would protect us. Our own homegrown terrorists… Oklahoma City, Columbine, the PA Amish, Virginia Tech, just to name a few… there are plenty more.
After all, guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people. And law abiding citizens become criminals AFTER they kill someone with a gun. That’s logical.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:17 pm“When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstancesâ€, we make cowardice the default position. “
April 18th, 2007 at 2:17 pmLet’s see Malkin pull out her Glock and go rambo. She’d run away, just like Ann Coulter.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:19 pmThe final turn of the Republican/Conservative revolution. Now everyone in the nation is to blame except for them. They have finally turned on everyone now.
Come on folks, Bushies, trolls, can you see now…..They have turned on everyone. They hate Hollywood, liberals, athiests, Muslims, unions, vegetarians, environmentalists, gays, 9/11 widows, college basketball players who were offended by being called whores, veterans like Murtha, Kerry and Webb, the French, Europe, Canada, South America, Africa, Russia, China, and now massacre victims.
My God, talk about a morally bankrupt political movement.
-GSD
April 18th, 2007 at 2:20 pmLine up all these a$$wipes and start shooting at them with two guns and see what they do.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:20 pm“The way the victims behaved is a reflection of our morally bankrupt leftwing culture. Steyn nails it brilliantly.
Comment by Patrick1″
that’s a great point. you should run for office in southwest virginia.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:21 pmNo politics involved. Steyn as clearly stated a concern about our leftwing dominated culture. Reflected most recently in Pelosi ass-kissing a Syrian thug and the Royal Navy surrendering to a bunch of towelheads. These students acted the same way and they were killed for it.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:21 pmPatrick1 is speaking from his coma. Someone else is posting his comments.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:22 pmThe irony is that Bush’s support has been largely based upon the assumption he can somehow protect the nation from terrorism. If we are to blame anyone for the fearfulness of the nation’s citizens (which is an assumption of course) we need look no futher than the White House, which has solidified it’s hold on power with constant threats of terrorism in order to do so.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:22 pmI think the claim that they are “blaming the victims” is quite disingenuous. Isn’t it obvious that they are not blaming the victims, but blaming the belief that the state can protect you at all times, which is far from the case. They are blaming the state for making the victims more victim-like.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:22 pmThe next time there is a mass shooting I recommend we ask who’s a conservative and then volunteer them to rush the gunman armed with a banana or a copy of the National Review and take down said gunman.
-GSD
April 18th, 2007 at 2:22 pmExcuse me, but what the heck is wrong with these guys? They would be the same ones who blame rape victims for wearing provocative clothing. Don’t waste your time or web site space on these kinds of comments.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:23 pmThe article is good, but it has some cheap shots in it. Americans are soft cowards. It’s pretty evident in enlistment numbers.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:23 pmI hope these people know how to protect their children.
There. That’s my final answer. Someone should have rushed the little puke.
What do you expect from a society that will not let its kids play dodge ball, or tag? Will not let kids say hi to a person they have not met for fear the stranger will hurt them. A society that puts a premium on political correctness over common sense. A society that allows the likes of Jessy Jackson and Al Sharpton cower grown men into quivering jello, out of fear of the wrong word.
Our society needs a backbone. It needs a transplant of good old fashioned courage.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:23 pmThese rightwing chickenhawks must grab their crotches ten times a day just to quell their fears that they really are men.
No one who knows anything about fighting in real life, particularly when unarmed against an armed opponent, who say such asinine things are Steyn & Derbyshire and Nathaneal Blake. These guys don’t know how to fight, wouldn’t get into a fight, and would slip on their own piss as they ran for their lives from a crazed gunman.
Oh, and Patrick1, the douche who accused liberals of having a surrender mentality: speaking as someone who has continued two fights despite getting bones broken: go fuck yourself.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:24 pmStop feeding the troll. He is simply dropping hot button ejackulations and growing fat and happy from all of the undesrved attention he’s getting. Please understand – he doesn’t care. He merely lives to make outrageous comments and laugh at those who respond.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:24 pm“When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstancesâ€, we make cowardice the default position. “
Comment by Patrick1inch — April 18, 2007 @ 2:17 pm
Says the man who fights valiantly behind his computer screen, but won’t enlist
STFU, patrick1inch
April 18th, 2007 at 2:24 pmLet the families greive
GSD – Point well taken. How morally corrupt these bushies are and then they call themselves “christians”. Jesus must be rolling over in his grave or banging his head against the clouds. American terrorists, all of them.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:25 pmIt’s easy to get down and wallow with the pigs
April 18th, 2007 at 2:27 pmbut all it does is get you dirty
and make the pig happy that he is being noticed
Go to Townhall.com where Malkin’s article is also posted.
Rather than discussing the tragedy of the situation, you get a bunch of people saying that this is a 2nd amendment issue and the solution is simply to give everyone on campus a gun.
The most fascinating thing that I find about this, and the Iraq situation is how BRAVE all of the right winged people purport to be. I’m sorry, and I may be wrong, but the left tends to let their actions speak louder than their words. Why is it that the right is always wearing their testosterone on their sleeve? When push comes to shove, however, they talk a good story but the chickenhawks prevail.
As was pointed out above, until you’re in a situation such as this, you don’t know how you’re going to react.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:27 pmTheToonGuy @ 42 thank you.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:29 pmVictim blamers, including Patrick and the other Repuke trolls, are subhuman scumbags who deserve to be sent to Gitmo.
STOP BLAMING THE VICTIMS!!!
April 18th, 2007 at 2:30 pmYes indeed. A nation where the President will claim the war against terrorism is the calling of our time, yet is to cowardly to call for a draft. Who is unwilling to offer his daughters up to the military. Who’s response to the words ‘America is under attack” was to sit still reading a childrens book for 7 minutes. Who’s senators wear flack jackets to tour a rug bazarr…
Cowards indeed.
-GSD
April 18th, 2007 at 2:30 pmhey look everyone
patrick1inch is cutting and pasting from a right wing blog!
How original! How cute!!!
Hey patrick1inch, since you’re here to debate, I got one for you….
The students who barricaded the room, and saved dozens of lives, are they heroes, or are the cowards in your opinion because they didn’t “jump this puke”???
You’ll actually have to think this one on your own as I doubt red state or right wing news has the answer for you to echo
April 18th, 2007 at 2:30 pmPatrick 1, if no politics are involved then what the hell does leftwing mean. Your words are mindless ramblings that are backed up by sorry sacks of shit that don’t have the balls enough to put their lives on the line and serve this country. And then you have this devine notion that you can be angry with the victims for not standing up. They’re only doing the same thing your doing. That is choosing not to serve.
So you can get mad at them but it’s ok for you. Your one of the biggest pieces republodung that stalks this thread.
I do enjoy reading most of your incoherent crap. It gives me comfort to know there will always be the easily swayed but some times your ass gets ahead of your head and you can’t help but stick it in passed your ears.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:30 pm“the Royal Navy surrendering to a bunch of towelheads. These students acted the same way and they were killed for it.
Comment by Patrick1 — April 18, 2007″
you forgot one; bush giving in to o.b.l.:
“…U.S. officials transferred control of portions of Prince Sultan Air Base to Saudi officials at a ceremony on 26 August 2003. The base had been home to about 60,000 US personnel over time. Roughly 4,500 US troops were redeployed from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, leaving about 500 in Saudi Arabia”
April 18th, 2007 at 2:31 pmVirginia Tech was a “gun free zone”. How did that workout?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:31 pmI’m sure this whole line of talking points will serve to cement the right in the hearts of the nation.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:32 pmGiving everybody on campus a gun is not the answer. Taking away everybodys guns is not the answer either.
We need to be more proactive in recognizing danger signs, like the ones given off by this shooter, and intervening early enough to stop the shooting.
This all happened so fast that the victims didn’t have time to stop it. So blaming the victims is just vicious, disgusting bullplop.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:32 pm.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:33 pmHeadline for tomorrow:
“Conservatives would like the VA Tech victims families to know that they believe those victims were cowards and the families should be ashamed.”
.
and Dennis Prager is a fool too.
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55234
the whole POINT of the tradition of shiva is precisely to have time TO HEAL!
April 18th, 2007 at 2:33 pm“Virginia Tech was a “gun free zoneâ€. How did that workout?
Comment by Patrick1 — April 18, 2007″
put that on a bumber sticker! you’ll sell millions!!
/you’re an idiot
April 18th, 2007 at 2:34 pmWhy aren’t they volunteering for duty in Iraq?
Comment by Anais
Because for all their bravado, they ( patrick1 included) are pants pissing cowards themselves.
Blame the victims for something that would have them screamming for their mommy. It would be so funny if it wasn’t so fscking sickening.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:35 pmWell, I’m about to take a position that will most probably earn me the instant enmity of every progressive here…but this is something that needs to be said.
To a certain point, I’m in agreement with Steyn.
There. I said it.
Please understand that I’m not passing judgement of the students of Virginia Tech. I’m unqualified to do that (as are all these ‘blame the victims’ right-wingers) for two reasons:
One: I’m not familiar with the particular circumstances of the incident. I don’t know whether or not it would have even been possible to ‘rush’ Cho, like the ‘blame the victims’ crowd so blithely asserts.
Two: Having never been in an incident even remotely similar to this, I have no idea as to how I would have reacted. Would I have retained my calm and waited for an opportunity to rush the shooter? Would I have given in to my cowardice and rationalized it to myself by telling myself that the police would deal with the situation? Would I have just frozen like a deer in the headlights? Would I have wet myself? I honestly don’t know.
I would like to think (as I’m sure we all would) that I would be able to master my fear long enough to take action, but unless you’ve stared death in the face before (as Professor Librescu had), you have no idea how you would react. That’s what I find so nauseating about these ‘blame the victims’ jackasses…even if they themselves could claim honestly that they could have overcome fear and acted (which most cannot), they utterly fail to place themselves in the shoes of a teenaged or twenty-something student, whose most violent experience to date has probably been a heated debate over how to properly tap the keg.
All this being said, I’d like to return to the core issue…the claim made by Steyn that the Virginia Tech students displayed an ‘awful corrosive passivity’. While, again, I’m not passing judgement on the students, the fact remains that this passivity is evident. The reason this concerns me is not the reason it concerns concerns Steyn, however. Steyn makes the argument that on occasion, citizens must be expected to step up and defend themselves, rather than expect the state to take care of them. I feel that now, more than ever, citizens are going to have to step up and defend themselves against the State itself.
This administration has been breathtakingly successful in concentrating an unreasonable amount of power in the Executive, rolling back the rights of the citizens, and basically setting themselves up as untouchable. Even now they flatly refuse to be bound by law. When our legal means of ridding ourselves of this cabal of criminals become exhausted, we will have to resort to other means.
Our Founding Fathers risked imprisonment, torture, and execution to wrest themselves free from the grip of a tyrant and establish a society where all could be free. Many of these brave souls paid the ultimate price for this dream. Now we are living the dream, and doing nothing as we watch it slowly slip away. Will we have what is required to fight to keep it? I look around me, and I’m not so sure. To my shame, I’m most unsure when I look in a mirror.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:37 pmI think the parents, especially those of the girls murdered are wondering why the men went liberal.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:37 pmThey aren’t blaming the victims. They’re blaming the SURVIVORS.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:37 pmOMG you people are gonna make me a Righty.
Who’s response to the words ‘America is under attack†was to sit still reading a childrens book for 7 minutes
Another good point… not only did boy Bush sit and do NOTHING while our country was under attack, he disappeared for the whole day and Cheney stayed in his bunker. The only leader that stood in front of the cameras and walked through the streets of New York City was Guilliani. I am not a fan of Guiliani but he was the only person in a position of leadership that stood in front of a camera on 9/11. I hate to say this, Rudy was the only leader that gave some sense of strength to Americans on 9/11 while our president ran for cover and waited for 3 days for the right photo op. We Americans were in “shock and awe” on 9/11 and didn’t even realize that our president was missing on that day.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:38 pmHe wasn’t you piece of sh!t. All it would take is for you to read one of the millions of articles on this tragedy and you would know that fu*k head. In fact, CNN’s front page has a story that is titled “Student Hero…..”
You are a dumb fu*k and you prove it every time you open your trap. Or type on your keyboard as the case may be here.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:38 pmIt is also interesting that the moonbats on here still have not challenged anything Steyn says other than the usual name calling and Olbermann talking points.
Steyn is correct and they know it.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:38 pmDennis Pregger is a Reich Wingnut Nazi pig.
He’s the one who bashed Rep. Ellison about his Moslem faith.
Just another holier-than-thou Repuke scumbag.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:38 pmThis Steyn fellow is quite the brave man. His logic, though, is not only racist, but also quite fantasy driven. In his world, the millions of Holocaust victims could have survived if they only fought back. They outnumbered their captors who had guns. His spewing of idiocy shows just what a jackass he is. He should just shut up and let the families grieve without his hateful diatribe hanging over their shoulders.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:39 pmMy 104 year old Grandma had class and could have kicked HIS ass.
Steyn, you are a disgrace.
Oh Patrick1inch, because you’re obviously so manly and tough (pffft!!!), I challenge you.
Go up to a grieving male student, who just lost his friend to this horrific murder, and tell him that said friend was acting cowardly, that if he was a true man, he would have jumped the weapons firing maniac, and prevented all these murders.
C’mon tough guy!
April 18th, 2007 at 2:40 pm…and while your at it, to prove how strong you are, why don’t you spit at the parents of a victims funeral
What an idea. Let all students carry guns. That will solve the problem because college students are the most rational, level headed, clear focused, sober individuals in the world.
Question though, do the students get to take their guns on Spring Break? They’ll be terririst by the water somewhere.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:40 pmThose students who only watched out for themselves and hid behind locked doors were acting like typical conservatives. Bush and Cheney have long histories of running and hiding. Tom Delay ran away from his re-election. The only difference is Bush would’ve also pissed himself.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:41 pmThe holocaust survivor was the only one at the door when he was killed. The “men” the ones who hadn’t jumped out the window held the door either after the gunman left or when he was in another classroom.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:42 pmFunny how moronic conservatives refuse to see that hiding behind a locked door is a valid step towards self preservation, and is probably more likely to succeed than their stupid idea of RUNNING TOWARD THE PSYCHO WITH THE GUN.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:43 pmhellin…
Do the students get to take their guns to their drinking parties?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:43 pm#37 I think the claim that they are “blaming the victims†is quite disingenuous.
And the questioning of the manhood of the victims was, what, exactly?
We’d all like to think we’d react with selfless courage under such circumstances. But until we’ve been in that situation ourselves, it’s upon us to STFU about how others react.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:43 pmBush and Cheney were cowards during the entire Vietnam War.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:44 pmBlaming victims is immoral and unethical and just plain wrong.
It figures the Repuke troll would blame the victims.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:45 pmlast chance, Patrick1inch.
Debate me, or realize that all your hatefilled, vile, attacking posts are irrelivent to this thread.
I’ve laid the gauntlet for the challenge. Do you accept, or are you going to piss and hide???
Again, in case you missed it…
April 18th, 2007 at 2:46 pmThe students who barricaded the room, preventing at least a dozen more murders, are they a)heroes
b)cowards
>>Bush and Cheney were cowards during the entire Vietnam War.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:46 pm#42…TheToonGuy…thanks for the reminder.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:47 pmPatrick you s*ck f*ck.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:47 pmPatrick0 must be commenting from Iraq, right? Join up bitch!
April 18th, 2007 at 2:47 pm“‘Bye Mom, ‘bye Dad, I’m off to school!”
“Got your Glock, son?”
“You betcha, Dad”
“Try not to eat so much pizza, and drink so much beer, honey, you know it’s unhealthy…”
“Oh, Mom…..”
April 18th, 2007 at 2:47 pmIt is not like one was hiding, but all of them. That is one of Steyn’s excellent points.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:47 pmImagine, if you will, a campus where everyone is armed. When shots are fired, everyone pulls out their weapon. How, pray tell, do you identify the shooter? When law enforcement arrives on the scene, who do they apprehend?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:48 pmThe intrepid duo, Steyn and Derb, implacable scourges of armed evildoers would benefit from talking to a few experienced soldiers and cops. They might then find out that it takes months to prepare and ordinary person to react quickly and effectively to unanticipated lethal threat. Even those who have been trained often freeze or succumb to fear. Soldiers are able to act capably in terrifying situations not because they have innately superior physical courage (few do) but because they know what to do and have the emotional armour that comes of their bonding with fellow soldiers – they stand for each other. Cops have some of this as well as a powerful “serve and protect” ethic that inspires them to act in the face of extreme danger.
But the mighty Derbyshire and the indominable Steyn reckon they have the rare valour gene that would allow them to assault and destroy an heavily armed psychopath in full manic attack mode. Worse, they declare that a gaggle of stunned undergraduate boys are less than manly because they failed to respond in a way consistent with Derb’s puerile macho fantasy.
Speaking of fantasies, mine is to be back in the Canadian Airborne and have these two asses to train. I would cause them multiple changes of underwear without ever subjecting them to a true life-threatening situation. Perhaps the experience would extract them from the infantile comic book world in which they are deeply mired.
PS: I am a Canadian. Steyn is not a good example of what we Canucks are like. Just so you know.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:49 pmThe only hero in the classroom was the seventy-two year old professor.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:50 pmPatrick1
Question for you.
How are you certain there are no conservative students at Virginia Tech and that none of them were in any of the rooms where all of this happened?
Is it because conservatives don’t go to college?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:51 pmOf course there is no concealed carry jurisdiction in America where everyone is armed, so that is just more liberal stupidity. In this case all you needed as in so many other instances one brave person with a handgun.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:53 pmThe comments from the gun-loving righties like Patrick1 reinforce my belief that America is a dying empire. They don’t know what happened in those rooms and how people reacted, but they know the “men” (quoted becuase they assume the guys were limp-wristed liberals, I mean, they were in school) were cowards.
I’ve had loaded guns pointed at me 2 times in my life, once by an off-duty detective and once by a guy harassing a mentally disabled friend. First reaction was a sense of cold shock down to my ankles, then an awareness that I should’nt make any sudden moves. The cop realized he had the wrong guy, and the other jerk yelled a lot, then walked away pointing his gun at me. At no point did I think I’ll just jump him and wrestle the gun away movie-style. I was happy to get out if it intact.
Patrick1 – what did you do when they pointed that loaded gun at you??
April 18th, 2007 at 2:53 pmWho’s response to the words ‘America is under attack†was to sit still reading a childrens book for 7 minutes. Who’s senators wear flack jackets to tour a rug bazarr…
Cowards indeed.
-GSD
Comment by GSD — April 18, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
So true, if the VT students were found sitting in a chair reading Green Eggs and Ham maybe neocons would be able to relate better.
Nobody can say how students reacted when the victims are dead. And we don’t really know how the shooter ended up dead do we?
That being said nice to know that the only kind of protection to expect in this country is vigilante justice.
Trained police and security officers had two hours to offer some warning to the students or look for the shooter but they did nothing. But the students should have known how to react in a life or death situation.
We have a government that takes no responsibility for anything, politicizes everthing and looks around furtively for scapegoats for all the mistakes it makes. Comforting.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:54 pmThe last two statements from the troll just show how pathetic his need is to stir things up to feed his miserable thirst for attention.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:55 pmPatrick1 enjoys thumping his chest, I see. I’d tell you what the first thing I would do is. I would live. I would avoid confrontation with the crazed gunman (hint: Patrick1, ‘Crazed gunman’ has meaning whether he’s white, black, asian, middle-eastern, or martian). I would try to _escape_, and stay out of his way. Why? Because unlike you, I have no delusions of grandeur. I AM NOT TRAINED HOW TO DISARM AN ARMED MAN! I wish to live to go home to my wife. I have no desire to widow my wife at 27, thank you very much. What would you do, Patrick1? Charge the guy and go down in a hail of gunfire? Get your fool-ass killed? Try to club him with a chair? What do you think this is? An effin’ movie?
As Olbermann said, this is real. The people who died are really dead. As you think of yourself as the HERO(tm) with a body of steel and a resolve to do righteous things in the name of the Lord, you qualify for a Darwin Award as you get gunned down like the fool you are as the brutal physics of _reality_ strikes you down. Moron, you and your buddies are wrong. Reality isn’t what you make it. Reality is the ruleset within which your life is defined. In the movies, one square-jawed hero can beat up the bad-guy and save the day. In reality, many square-jawed young men (and buxom young women) were wheeled out with a shroud over them. Undoubtably some of them died trying to protect their friends and classmates. Heroes in every sense of the word. Just like the men on the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania on your beloved September 11 (”The date that changed Everything!!!”). But like those men on that airplane, brutal reality struck. They may have saved many lives but in the end they still died. They didn’t wrestle the controls from the aircraft from the terrorists and land that airplane with all the passengers safe. They distracted the terrorists to the point that the plane went out of control. The plane didn’t fly itself while they fought, dipping for dramatic effect. It went into an unrecoverable plunge. Those men’s last few moments were spent in knowledge that they forfeited their lives so that others may live. BUT EVERY LAST MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD DIED ON THAT AIRCRAFT!
Patrick1, turn off your fucking TV script and join reality, idiot. If you had tried to confront Seung-Hui, YOU WOULD HAVE DIED. He would have gunned you down like the arrogant fool you are. Go google ‘Darwin Award’, you poser. THAT is what you’d have gotten if you had no kids, and an honorable mention if you had kids. But we all know what you would have done.
You would have pissed your pants, you poser. You would have turned yeller and we’d hear dripping as the pee drops off your pantsleg and spreds across your lap in a smelly wet spot. You would be blubbering at Seung-Hui: “DON’T KILL ME!! PLEASE!!!” And he’d waste you and move on to the next. You would have been one of the 32 killed in the massacre.
And Karma be damned, you would have deserved it. Welcome to an elite club, Patrick1. You’re one of a handful of people I wish death upon.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:57 pmThe only hero in the classroom was the seventy-two year old professor.
Comment by Patrick1inch — April 18, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
Answer my question!
April 18th, 2007 at 2:57 pmWere they heroes, or were they cowards?
The liberal plague of surrender knows no limits. It can even effect a conservative. It is called group think. Another word for it that you can understand would be global warming.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:58 pmTrolls like this one should be closely watched by the Feds.
Obviously they are off their rockers and might start shooting.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:59 pmVirginia Tech was a “gun free zoneâ€. How did that workout?
Comment by Patrick1 — April 18, 2007 @ 2:31 pm
Obviously not, the students were shot not knifed.
Obviously no gun regulations were enforced, there were no metal detectors, no searches, so any student was actually free to carry a weapon for protection.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:01 pmWe do know what happened in the classrooms. This idea that they weren’t trained and therefore hiding was all they could do is not true. Examples would be Flight 93 where untrained passengers took the plane back from Islamo Fascists. And Richard Reid who as Steyn points out, even the French kicked his ass.
These poor students were inflicted with political correctness and many of their fellow students died because of it. We need to start raising men again and not Pelosis and Clintons.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:01 pmSo this sonofabitch claims the victims didnt grow balls to stop the killer.What an assh*le
April 18th, 2007 at 3:02 pmThe ones who did nothing to defend themselves were not cowards they were politically correct.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:03 pmIt occurs to me that rightwing pundits like Steyn and Derbyshire and Malkin say the terrible things that they do because they have an inner need to be hated. Why else would they attack the murder victims in this way? Why, at other times, would Ann Coulter say the most vicious and vile things about people, knowing that she will be despised for it?
Just as homophobes are often fighting their own homosexual desires, I believe that rightwing haters are simply projecting their own self-directed hatred. They want to be punished.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:03 pmBlaming the victim is going to go a long way to enamor the public to the Neocon Republic point of view. They really don’t know when to quit and when to keep their mouth shut. If I was in any way related to any of those kids, I would be horrified to hear what these people are saying.
I would also like to know if all these brave neocons have gone down to their recruiter and joined up to fight the good fight in Iraq? I doubt it. They are all armchair warriors.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:04 pmone last chance, Patrick1inch.
Heroes?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:05 pmor
Cowards?
What part of Steyn’s article is saying terrible things? Is the truth terrible?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:06 pmBravo Ann!!!
April 18th, 2007 at 3:06 pmI’m a Tech student, Patrick1. I’m also an honorably discharged and decorated combat veteran. I challenge you, I fucking dare you to hop a bus to Blacksburg and say that shit to my face you contemptible chicken-shit.
Before anyone calls me a liar, check VT People Search for Gabriel McVey.
I’m waiting, douchebag.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:07 pmCheney have long histories of running and hiding. Tom Delay ran away from his re-election. The only difference is Bush would’ve also pissed himself.
Comment by And You Thought REAGAN Was Stupid — April 18, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
Let’s not forget Ann Coulter running away like a coward when somebody threw a pie at her.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:07 pmI thought that the legitimate roles of government were national security, homeland security, and public safetey.
Political correctness has nothing to do with the way the students in the classrooms at VA Tech acted. Their actions had more to do with not knowing the complete situation. They did the only thing they knew they could.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:09 pm“I’m torn between not really having an opinion and leaning towards wondering why more didn’t fight. ”
Please enlighten me how you would fignt someone who had a gun aimed at you from 20 feet away. Inquiring minds need to know. Plus, it’s very hard to fight someone with an automatic weapon. They can kill numerous people within seconds. If we had rational gun laws that banned automatic weapons, then there might have been a way that someone could have faught back (while he was reloading). To every one who thinks the kids are responsible for their own deaths because they didn’t fight back….when are ou going down to the local recruiting office to sign up to be a true American hero?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:09 pmPatrick you’re a pussy. Funny how you have this telepathy to know exactly what happened and how, not to mention you can read everyone’s minds. I love it when you fundy bastardos tell us what we believe. Maybe you could have saved those kids yourself had you not been porkin a cow out in the field there red stater.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:13 pmA man who survived the Nazis and the Communists knew what to do. The men in his classroom hid or fled. Interesting.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:13 pmThe only hero in the classroom was the seventy-two year old professor.
Comment by Patrick1 — April 18, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
Interesting you’re singing the praises of a Jewish holocaust surviver at the same time your serving your neocon Nazi heros.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:14 pmThe situation was they were being shot at by a lone nut. Even in our current dead culture of cowardice and political correctness it wouldn’t take much to figure that out.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:14 pmIt is part of our culture to seek solace from finding somebody or something to blame for all our ills… while avoiding the more difficult effort it requires to find solutions.
Blame the university for not locking down the campus.
Blame guns
Blame the students
Blame the meads the shooter took
I have not read one single article that attempts to address the solution without first narrowly fixing the blame.
I don’t know about you, but when truly bad and shocking things have happened to me it didn’t seem real. The brain does not compute.
If we make guns illegal, those bent on killing will find another way.
The foil hat crowd who think that insanity is made worse by meds need to do their homework.
We live in a risk intolerant society, where some believe that we can somehow pass laws and implement processes to prevent every bad thing.
Our forefathers came to this country at great peril so they could be free. What happened to that spirit?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:15 pmLet’s hand out guns at Regent University first.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:16 pmThe calls for people to charge the gunman remind me of the guy in the darwin awards to, to prove he is the most manly of all of male friends, proceeded to take a chainsaw, and cut his own head off.
These people don’t care that there was little to no hope of stopping the gunman by trying to charge him or overpower him. They still thirst for the image of the “macho hero” bravely standing up in a valiant (but utterly futile) attempt to stop the shooting and being felled in the process. In other words, they wanted the people to be shot down as martyrs instead of as people who would do the first instinct your mind and body tells you – to try to save their own lives if they can.
What many of these people don’t understand is that several of the victims were members of the VT Corp of Cadets. If anyone had the bravery, knowledge, and ability to take such an action, they were the ones. They either didn’t or couldn’t. That should say something, and it’s not “liberals have made all men weak.”
April 18th, 2007 at 3:16 pmThe ones who did nothing to defend themselves were not cowards they were acting like Republicans.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:16 pmSo Patrick, I’ve missed my response.
Conservatives don’t go to college, especially Virginia Tech?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:17 pmDocumented cowards: George Bush. Dick Cheney. Donald Rumsfeld. Tom Delay.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:17 pmWho are these “heroes” that watch too many action flicks, who have never faced such a terrifying situation, that think they would act like Seagal or Chuck Norris in such a situation? Sniveling weasels that pipe up and beak off while they are safe.
You’re just sitting in a classroom in the morning and you hear gunshots and screams. You’re going to jump out and run out to see what’s happening? No, you’re going to try to get as far away as possible, or stay as protected as possible. If someone is able manage their fear enough and take an opportunity to try to do something to save themselves or others, then that’s fortunate. But to criticize these terrified young people, much less anyone save maybe someone trained in combat, is so repugnant and self-righteous that it only demonstrates real cowardice in those that express such opinions.
This claim of “rampant surrender mentality in America” is so clearly directed by the dim-witted right proponents at the criticizers of the war in Iraq, using such a great tragedy in a pathetic cheap political move to further their depraved world view.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:19 pmLet it be on record then that Patrick1inch, he of great strength and security behind his keyboard, considers these brave students, who barracaded the door to the classroom, preventing possibly a dozen more deaths, cowards!
I will bring this up everytime I confront lonely 1inch.
May I recommend others to do the same.
Victims (dead and alive) deserve our sympathy, not our malcontent judgement
April 18th, 2007 at 3:19 pm#116 I answered it. Maybe you are hiding under your desk.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:21 pmPatrick would bring a knife to a gun fight. I bet Patrick would have rushed the offender and ripped off his arm. Beating the wretch with his own arm until the authorities came. In Patrick’s own mind he’s a hero.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:21 pmIf Bush would’ve been there, he would have continued to read “My Pet Goat,” then after the massacre was over he’d take out his revenge by shooting a random student at the University of Virginia.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:22 pmI’m not blaming them. I’m just wondering what illness currently inflicts our culture that prevented them from acting.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:25 pmIt’s interesting that the holocaust surviver told his students to flee, not fight. It’s a question of surviving and not always by fighting your attacker. I was in the army during Vietnam. Because of my MOS (job) in the army I was trained on numerous weapons. I fired 100,000’s of rounds. I know how to handle a gun. After getting out of the army I had a gun pointed at me and fired. It was paralyzing. I don’t see how any of these people can be blamed for not fighting back.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:26 pmIf you never experienced a situation like Virginia Tech and still feel like you should criticize from the comfort of your home I just have to say shut your f@cking mouth.
Stop the lies.
PATRICK1 – IF YOU CAN’T RESPOND TO THIS PREVIOUS POSTER THEN YOU HAVE NO FURTHER VALUE HERE AND SHOULD F*** OFF
——————————————————————
I’m a Tech student, Patrick1. I’m also an honorably discharged and decorated combat veteran. I challenge you, I fucking dare you to hop a bus to Blacksburg and say that shit to my face you contemptible chicken-shit.
Before anyone calls me a liar, check VT People Search for Gabriel McVey.
I’m waiting, douchebag.
Comment by zerochance77 — April 18, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
April 18th, 2007 at 3:26 pmBut what about the ones who stopped the Islamo Fascists on flight 93 or stopped the shoe bomber? Our universities suffer from crippling political correctness and in this case it got students killed.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:30 pmI’m not blaming them. I’m just wondering what illness currently inflicts our culture that prevented them from acting.
Comment by Patrick1inch, who feels the victims of VT are cowards — April 18, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
Gee, I dunno. the same illness that prevents you from enlisting in the military and shipping your scrawny little a$$ to Iraq, to fight for what you believe
April 18th, 2007 at 3:30 pm>>I’m not blaming them. I’m just wondering what illness currently inflicts our culture that prevented them from acting.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:31 pmWell, looks like my comment didn’t go through. Shortened and sanitized version:
Patrick1 thinks that the kids at VATech should have been Movie Heroes ™ and charged Seung-Hui. In a movie, he would have been taken down by Square-Jawed Action Heroes, who would have then gone home with the Buxom Babes and had a massive party and celebration. Reality strikes, however, and anyone stupid enough to go ‘Action Hero’ would end up a Darwin Award nominee (his only saving grace would be that Darwin Awards would likely not accept the nomination as it would be in poor taste).
Patrick1 says he’s all big and bad, but we all know that if he was put in that situation, he’d be one of the 30 dead. He’d like to think he could pull the All American Action Hero ™ bit and be the One Who Saved All Those People ™. Realistically, he’d have pulled the All American Action Hero ™, found out that God doesn’t GM real life using cinematic rules, and went down in the all-to-realistic result of a hail of gunfire. Even more realistically, he’d be the guy lying in the corner in a puddle of his own urine blubbering out “Please don’t kill me…” just before Seung-Hui put him out of his misery.
To Patrick1, I have but one thing to say. “Boy, grow up. This ain’t Hollywood.”
April 18th, 2007 at 3:31 pmThanks for your service Eric the Blue. Thanks for the perspective.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:32 pm#105, good point, Judy. “Their actions had more to do with not knowing the complete situation. They did the only thing they knew they could.”
The thing people forget about the heroes on Flight 93 is they had a little time and they had information that people on the other flights didn’t have–they had talked to family members who told them about the two airplanes that had been flown into the Twin Towers so they had an idea that their hijackers might try and do the same thing with their airplane. This is not to take anything away from their heroism, it’s just that that is important information. If you know there’s a high likelihood you’re going to die and that if you don’t resist or try to fight back thousands of other people might die (and you have a while to think about and plan what you’re going to do), you might take actions that wouldn’t occur to kids sitting in a usually uneventful class on a Monday morning.
#111, I agree, if people are bent on killing they will find another way, but you have to admit, they can kill a whole lot more people faster with a gun than a knife or their hands.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:33 pmOops, my last post messed up for some reason
It’s not an illness. Several people did what they could when they could to limit the damage, including the professor you cite as well as the students who held the door to their classrooms shut.
However, what people like the author of the article wants is a charge of the light bridage – they wanted the people to be slain as brave heroes attempting in a futile but courageous attempt to stop the killer.
Of course such an action would guarantee their deaths and do absolutely nothing to stop the shooter, so what sense does it even make to do that unless you have a hero-complex.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:34 pmJust to silence this stupid debate about “illnesses”, it’s the same illness that kept the students at UTA from storming the bell tower with their folios and manuals and killing Charles Whitman with their looseleaf notepads back in ‘66. But I guess calling on the baby-boomers to account for their own “cowardice” (read: survival instincts) would be too far off topic.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:34 pmIt may come as a surprise to most of these card-carrying NRA members, but there are a lot of people in this country who have never held a gun or really know what it sounds like when fired. Their only exposure is the sounds they hear in a movie theater which is overly dramatic. And most people are not from the military or had police training in how to control your fear in situations like this.
Although I know that Styne and Derbyshire are probably not anti-social, but it’s pretty chickenshit to say how you would have reacted when you weren’t in the situation. I doubt they fully appreciate what it means to be on the business end of a 9mm when most of the intended victims had probably never been around guns. Confusion + panic + fear doesn’t mean that people aren’t brave, it means that they unsure about what is happening. Some people were able to overcome their fear and perform brave acts and who’s to say that others didn’t try and died in the attempt. Until the facts come out these people need to keep these kinds of thoughts to themselves. Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth or blog and prove it.
My guess would be that as more information comes to light, there are going to be lots of stories of individual acts of bravery and these commentators will be shown for what they are, self-centered mental cripples that have the empathy of a door knob. Spouting off about how someone should have acted is callous and cold. Everyone knows what they could have done after the fact, there are lots of Monday morning quarterbacks but when it comes to those killed in a tragedy, leave the macho bullshit of what you would have done out of the conversation. It isn’t about you, OK.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:35 pmI agree with Patrick and the rest of the wingnuts on this one. It is time to put an end to this kind of tragedy. I suggest the following:
All incoming freshmen will be required to purchase a semi-automatic handgun (or the parents). There will be a month long training class at a boot camp style facility, where the students will learn the mechanics, and theory, and safety of firearms. Daily shooting practice and qualification at the end of the month will be required as well. Hell, maybe Advanced students could learn a little close quarters room clearing from some special ops types.
You don’t pass, you don’t get to go to college.
This would solve so many problems it boggles the mind. Date rapists would have to think seriously about their actions or get their dicks shot off. The drunken frat boy who pulls his gun in jest would get whacked for his stupidity. There might be a resurgence of dueling, that would be tres’ cool baby. The sports teams could play strapped. Those friggin late hits on the football field would come to end I bet.
Now, it would not all be of course. Drunken crowds of university students hanging in the local bars might get a little dicey. The townies would have to watch their asses I tell ya. Those impromptu gatherings of drunken students outside the dorms that turn a little to close to riot might be a little tricky for the campus cops, but hey that is what the National Guard is for, so no real problem there.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:36 pmBut what about the ones who stopped the Islamo Fascists on flight 93 or stopped the shoe bomber?
Comment by Patrick1inch, caller of VT victims, cowards! — April 18, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
wait just one cotton pickin’ minute here.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:38 pmDid you just call the passengers (victims) of the other 3 hijacked planes, that did hit there intended targets, cowards?
By your logic, you just have
MORON!
Patrick1, I’m not sure that you are listening (gee imagine that). The terrorists on flight 93 had box cutters and the idiot shoe bomber was armed with a lighter. Again I will say, real slowly for you, u n l e s s
April 18th, 2007 at 3:38 pmy o u h a v e h a d a g u n p o i n t e d a t y o u, y o u d o n ‘t
u n d e r s t a n d h o w p a r a l z i n g i t i s.
Oh, and also shut your f@cking mouth.
Stop the lies.
They are not even comparable situations.
First, the people on Flight 93 already knew they were doomed if they did nothing. That isn’t the case in the VT shootings.
Second, The terrorist on Flight 93 were armed with box cutters. Going against them with superior numbers actually made the chances of “success” pretty good. That wasn’t he case at VT. The shooter had two guns, which he was very adept at using, and firing rapidly at everyone. What possible chance would anyone have had to stop him? If you stand up to get ready to charge him, you’re going to be a ridiculously easy target. If you try to get to him by crawling on the floor, he’s probably still going to see and shoot you.
Patrick – perhaps before bashing people for being limp noodles, perhaps you could give an example of exactly how they could have dealt with the shooter beyond what they did.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:39 pmI think the parents, especially those of the girls murdered are wondering why the men went liberal.
Comment by Patrick1
You are one sick f*ck.
Tell you what, tough guy. Let me know where and I will rent the local boxing club’s ring for the day. I want to meet you there, you and me, one on one.
I have vacation time I can take.
regular boxing rules, full contact karate, whatever your choice. Let’s do it tough guy. See if you can even knock this “liberal”off his feet.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:39 pmI’m not blaming them. I’m just wondering what illness currently inflicts our culture that prevented them from acting.
Comment by Patrick1 — April 18, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
Yes you are. You’ve been blaming them on two threads at least. You call them liberals and blame them for being cowards.
Isn’t Virginia a red state, Patrick1?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:39 pmreboho – As a veteran…nothing prepares you except having been shot at before. Grit gained through tough experience is the only way to overcome the quite natural terror one experiences during a gunfight. These kids weren’t in a fight, though. Their reactions are totally par for the course: ducking, hiding & fleeing. I am a Tech student and while I was off campus at the time, I would have run like hell…and that’s from a combat veteran.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:41 pmWow, Patrick1, I’m very impressed.
You’ve spent how many days upon days here and you managed to change how many minds with your contempt for the left and your diatribe? Probably none.
Must be fun to have no life other than being a constant forum troll. Oh wait…no, it probably isn’t, is it?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:41 pmI believe it was called “being shot at”
April 18th, 2007 at 3:42 pmPatrick1, the people on Flight 93 had time to figure out what was going on and knew they were probably going to die. They had time to overcome their fear and try to save others because they knew what was coming. These kids didn’t know what was really coming. If you knew how to use teh Google, you can find other instances of mass killings where people pretty much reacted the same way and it had nothing to do with PC on a college campus. Really Patrick1, this isn’t about you.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:44 pmP1 is nothing more than a stone to hone your debate on.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:48 pm#106 If we had rational gun laws that banned automatic weapons
Automatic weapons have been banned since the ’30s. They’re called Class 3 weapons and you have to jump through enormous hoops to own one.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:49 pmI don’t know. His arguments are pretty lame, and he’s been reduced to repeating himself without actually explaining the justification of his claims.
Of course, then again, maybe that is good training for arguing against a neo-con…
April 18th, 2007 at 3:50 pm“…you have to jump through enormous hoops to own one.” – PeterW
To obtain a Federal Firearms License is simple; A.T.F. will approve the application if the applicant:
* Is 21 years or older.
* Is not prohibited from handling or possessing firearms or ammunition
* Has not violated the Gun Control Act or its regulations
* Has not failed to disclose information or facts in connection with their application
* Has premises for conducting business or collecting
All that and the application fee and you’re all set.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:54 pmThough there are probably a lot of semi-automatic weapons that have been modified to automatic out there anyway.
Banning firearms is not the answer. It did not work for booze. If we tried it every f**king drug dealer who is not already dealing in illicit arms would be smuggling them in to the US as well.
You have to change the culture.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:56 pmYeah, that’s the ticket! Let’s have gun battles on campuses during lunch breaks.
Let’s have shoot ‘em outs on the football field!
Have these repugs all gone mad?!
In their zeal to make everything that occurs score a point for their political views, they sound like raving lunatics.
Max Max University? Is that next?
April 18th, 2007 at 3:58 pmThey are truly nuts and those posting here who agree with them need a quiet hour to contemplate and hope to gain some sense.
As for my thoughts on gun control, I don’t think banning guns is necessarily the answer (though I think having maximum clip size can help, though it wouldn’t really have helped in this case), but I also think having more guns won’t really help either.
If one looks at industrialized nations, probably the best predictor of lowered gun violence is….spending on social services. The more spending the lower the gun crime rate.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:00 pmCome on people, we all know Patrick1 is an expert at being a coward!!
April 18th, 2007 at 4:03 pmIf you’re not an FFL dealer, however, it gets more complicated. You have to have either incorporated yourself, or maintain a license and all the paperwork (which, like an FFL itself, is quite onerous, especially since the late ’90s when small dealers began to cume under more scrutiny). Similarly, the receiver must be dated later than ‘87.
Let’s remember here: automatic weapons are extremely rare and unusual, and you don’t see them in crimes much. Even among the much-loathed semi-automatic weapons, the fraction of guns that will ever be used in a crime is miniscule.
Any sort of “ban” on these turns millions of law-abiding citizens into criminals. And it’s a losing issue for the left. You want registration? Background checks? Requirements for training and licensing? Go right ahead. All are reasonable measures, if you can convince the public this isn’t a back-door grab at their firearms.
But when you start banning something that’s constitutionally protected to the people, if not specifically to persons (and the 2nd ammendment protects ‘arms’ a militiaman might use, in other words, basic infantry weapons – NOT hunting guns), when the overwhelming majority are used lawfully, then you’re putting the left back into minority status.
Personally, I’d rather us be in winning status.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:04 pm#149 bingo. There are heavily armed societies that don’t have our problems with violence.
We liberals look for root causes until it’s shiny, metal, black, and shoots bullets, and we all collectively pee our pants and turn into social conservatives. The anti-gun mentality of the left is EXACTLY the same as the anti-pornography mentality of social conservatives. An inanimate object tempts us to sin, so ban the object.
We’re better than that. Let’s do what liberals do best: get to the root causes of social problems, not address symptoms. I’m sorry guns scare a lot of you. But guns are not the problem. Our failure to act as a community is. There were plenty of warnings about this kid – but the community (a few members aside) didn’t get involved.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:07 pmPeterW – Sorry to come off that way. Personally, I agree 99%. I was saying that your characterization makes the issue seem more cut-and-dried than it really is. An F.F.L. is NOT so difficult, I have one as a private citizen and collector.
I agree that this issue is a loser for the left just as a total ban on abortions is a loser for the right. Extreme positions are ALWAYS loser for the partisans that back them. I never thought I’d say this, but centrist and third-way politics with all of its triangulation and poll-tested solutions does have its benefits.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:13 pmSeeing all these ‘brave’ conservatives announce how the students at the college were cowardly, unmanly, PC, etc I have a suggestion beyond the usual lets-see-them-go-to-Iraq (which I support as well).
I heartily suggest that Derb and the rest go to the campus and speak. They should read their columns aloud in the center of campus and call the students and staff cowards to their face. In public. On television.
Let’s see if these oh-so manly men/women have the ability to go right to where the victims are and spew this crap.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:15 pmIt’s funny how everyone gets into some sort of discussion with Patrick1 especially since Patrick1 seems to be enjoying himself. His posts are nothing more than bait and when people respond to him, he probably thinks “gotcha!”.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:17 pm#121 ROFLMAO. Why are people feeding Patrick1? Unless laced with arsenic, I recommend not feeding him and hitting the old ignore button. As for the Steyn piece — dollars to donuts most Canadians would and could kick his a$$, and that only includes the six-year-old girls. Also, I see the Clenis somehow made it into his pabulum-laced, incoherent “essay.” Relevance, how, exactly????? Oh, that’s right, he’s a conservative “intellectual” — an oxymoron if ever.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:17 pmTwo things:
1st – DragonScholar, I’d love to see these manly types spew their crap to the VT Corps of Cadets. Not to mention the almost 10% of the student body that are veterans (like myself) many from the recent Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.
2nd – Shane, Virginia is not a “red” state. Governor Tim Kaine (D), Senator Jim Webb (D) and 9th District Congressman Rick Boucher (D) home to Tech.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:23 pmThe comments by Amy, Josh, and reboho are spot on. There can be no comparison between the students at VT and the passengers of United 93. As they said, “the heroes on Flight 93 is they had a little time and they had information that people on the other flights didn’t have–they had talked to family members who told them about the two airplanes that had been flown into the Twin Towers so they had an idea that their hijackers might try and do the same thing with their airplane.”
DRxJ also makes a valid point in posting 134. The passengers on the other flights were not “cowards.” They simply did not have access to the same information that the United 93 passengers did. They were led to believe that theirs would be a “traditional” hijacking and acted accordingly. They had no idea, unlike the heroes of United 93, what horrors the terrorists had planned.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:23 pmunlike the heroes of United 93,
Comment by Exley — April 18, 2007 @ 4:23 pm
Somewhat off topic, sorry, but did you happen to watch Flight 93?
April 18th, 2007 at 4:29 pmMy wife and I did the other night.
Very intense, very well acted.
Kinda helps one make sense of what happened that day, especially on that particular flight.
To be honest, DRxJ, I hear it is excellent, but I think I would find it too sad and depressing and anger-producing.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:34 pmIf you believe the official conspiracy theory.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:53 pmI’ve never seen so many home-schooled little bitches that dream of being Jack Bauer. I’m embarrassed for you. You’re coming off as a joke.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:58 pmAnd another one checks in:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/04/16/how-could-loving-god
Only this time it’s not the victims he’s blaming; it’s “atheism and evolution”.
Dang. Just when you think they’ve gone as far as they can go, they’ll pedal on another few miles.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:21 pmJeebus Kreist. I can’t believe the gall and douchebaggery shown by these neocon chickenhawk swine as they insult the dead, wounded, and rightfully stunned students of VT.
I have heard a lot of bad-ass self-defense talk coming from the likes of the Derb, Malkin, and Steyn yet not one of those martial artists has offered to use their superior martial arts skills over in Iraq or Afghanistan where we could really use them.
That is why they are chickenhawks- they talk as thought they’re tough and question the manhood and toughness of the rest of us- all the while writing from the safety of their suburban USA homes.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:22 pmKRank,
The shooter had not evolved to the point where he could feel peace within himselft without taking other people’s lives. Now that’s proof of evolution. We need to speed up evolution so that we stop killing each other. As for atheism, hummm, the bible is filled with stories about MURDER so I’ll remain an atheist or Gnostic or something like that. Must be the bible that inspires people to kill.
See how easy it is to blame religion for the deaths at VT?
April 18th, 2007 at 5:44 pmlistening to randi talking about the latest news concerning VTech – it is most definitely a case of a failure of the mental health system… and given that, the kid should not have been able to get a gun…
what kind of government allows it’s citizens to suffer so?…
this country is as sick as i never ever thought it could be…
April 18th, 2007 at 5:48 pmand it basically comes down to greed, always the greed…
Questioning the honor of the deceased is treason. I am a true blue liberal and I live in Chicago. I would love to go toe to toe with any weakling who subscribes to this nonsense. Name the time and name the place. I am calling out all neocons who hide behind their computers.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:55 pmYou know who fights back? Real men fight back. Yep, real men like, um, Iraqi insurgents. By golly, those real men are fighting back every day. Real rough ‘n’ tumble, allah-akbar, Charles Atlas-loving, Mark Steyn-reading He-Men! Guess the Corner’s gonna have to turn the corner on its opposition to Isalmofascism — those SOB’s fight, jack!
April 18th, 2007 at 6:15 pmYou know it’s fuuny. All these right wing pundits like Derbyshire are saying things that they know nothing about. I suppose that is what happens when you’re a conservative.
April 18th, 2007 at 7:31 pmLiberals are ridiculous. They expect people to just sit back and let themselves be trampled on but then are shocked when people do so.
If anyone’s thinking about being a Democrat, show them this wonderful video to demostrate the great intellectual prowess of the typical liberal:
April 18th, 2007 at 11:26 pmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTh79qcTKhc
I like the way you fight with your keyboard. Your numble fingers are so fearless in the face of an assault by millions of photons off of your screen, charing their way into your body, blinding you with their energy. Yet you soldier on, tap-tap-tapping at the keys, keeping up the defense.
I am so sorry you hate yourself so much that you would besmirch the poor people who were shot in the face, the head, the heart… those that had their brains ripped to shreds. Here are a few of the victims that were too cowardly to resist, and instead were butchered.
——————–
Nicole White, 20, of Carrollton, Va., was a junior majoring in international studies and German. White graduated from Smithfield High School in 2004, according to The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.
White worked at a YMCA as a lifeguard and was an honor student in high school, the newspaper reported.
Her family was planning a news conference Thursday in Suffolk.
Laurie Guiffre, who grew up with White, remembers her friend as a person of great character with a genuine love for animals.
“I keep trying to come to terms with the fact that she is no longer here and I will never see her again.” Guiffre wrote to MSNBC.com.
Another childhood friend, Michelle D. Clay, of Toccoa Falls, Ga., recalled that ” was one my four best friends, and we all shared everything.”
“I never imagined she would be gone in the blink of an eye.”
April 19th, 2007 at 9:58 amMaxine Turner, 22, from Vienna, Va., was a senior majoring in chemical engineering.
Turner had finished her required credits and was preparing for her May graduation but took German as an elective, said her father, Paul Turner. The 22-year-old was shot in the German class.
“She was very excited — she was very excited about school in general,†her father said.
An anonymous poster told MSNBC.com that she had been a classmate of Turner’s at James Madison High School in Vienna. “She was at the top of our class and did really well in school … Vienna is a very close, tight-knit community and I know those from our graduating class of 2003 and all other JMHS students past and present are grieving from this tragic loss of life.”
Turner was accepted by a handful of high-profile schools, including Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. But she was determined to be a Virginia Tech Hokie, her father said.
“We tried to convince her to go elsewhere. When you get accepted to Johns Hopkins, it’s a very prestigious school,†he said. “But no, she wanted to go to Virginia Tech.â€
Turner recently helped found a chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon, a sorority for women in engineering. She had accepted a chemical engineering job with W.L. Gore & Associates in Elkton, Md.
“It’s a terrible loss,†her father said Wednesday, weeping. “I cannot understand the legislators in this country, not putting in laws that protect people.â€
April 19th, 2007 at 9:58 amWaleed Mohammed Shaalan, 32, of Zagazig, Egypt, was a doctoral student in civil engineering, the university said.
Shaalan was married and the father of a 1-year-old son, according to the Muslim Students Association at Virginia Tech.
“He was the simplest and nicest guy I ever knew. We would be studying for our exams and he would go buy a cake and make tea for us,†Fahad Pasha, Waleed’s roommate, said on the association’s Web site.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the Egyptian embassy in Washington was taking steps to fly his body home.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:59 amLeslie Sherman, age 20, was a sophomore majoring in history and international studies.
“She had a lot of friends, and was a very outgoing person,†recalled friend Ann Marks, who worked with Sherman in the cafeteria.
An avid traveler, she was headed to Russia this summer to study, said her grandmother, Gerry Adams.
Sherman, from Springfield, Va., had visited Boston and London with her mother; she visited her grandparents in Kennewick, Wash., last month for spring break, Adams said.
Sherman — who was named after her grandfather, Leslie — loved reading and socializing with her “gaggle†of more than 15 cousins spread out at colleges across the country, Adams said.
She text-messaged one of them the evening before she died.
“She was so happy. Life was going so well for her,†said Adams, who described the family as “just beside themselves†with grief.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:03 amReema Samaha, 18, from Centreville, Va., a freshman who performed with the school’s Contemporary Dance Ensemble. Her brother Omar, a Virginia Tech graduate, told NBC’s TODAY show that she was shot dead while in French class.
Their father, Joe Samaha, told “Dateline NBC” that “she was a beautiful person and that’s what I’ll remember her as. We’ve lost a very talented beautiful young lady who was growing here at the university. Her heart was in dance and theater and she belonged to a contemporary dance ensemble here and she loved that very much.”
Katerina Rodgaard, in a posting to MSNBC.com, said she had been a dance instructor to Samaha. “I will never forget her constant smile,” she wrote. “So much positive energy. She was such a beautiful dancer as well. … We were all like a family and she will be missed dearly. She loved being in dance class and I was so proud to hear that she continued her dancing in college. So young, so beautiful and so talented. I’m still in shock.”
Samaha had recently taken up belly dancing, a nod to her family’s roots in Lebanon, where the Samahas visited each summer.
“She was just beautiful and when you watched her, I thought she was one of the most gorgeous girls in the world, inside and out,†said Lauren Walters, a former classmate of Samaha’s who now attends Clemson University
Samaha and another victim, Erin Peterson, graduated from Westfield High in Chantilly, Va., in 2006, three years after the alleged gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, graduated from the same school. It was not clear if they knew each other.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:03 amMary Read, 19, of Annandale, Va., according to her aunt, Karen Kuppinger, of Rochester, N.Y.
She was born in South Korea into an Air Force family and lived in Texas and California before settling in the northern Virginia suburb of Annandale, said Kuppinger.
Read considered a handful of colleges, including nearby George Mason University, before choosing Tech. It was a popular destination among her Annandale High School classmates, Kuppinger said.
She had yet to declare a major.
“I think she wanted to try to spread her wings,” said Kuppinger, whose niece had struggled adjusting to Virginia Tech’s large campus. She’d recently begun making friends and looking into a sorority.
Kuppinger said the family started calling Read as news reports surfaced.
“After three or four hours passed and she hadn’t picked up her cell phone or answered her e-mail … we did get concerned,†Kuppinger said. “We honestly thought she would pop up.â€
Julia Singer, who attended Annandale High School with Read, wrote this to MSNBC.com: “I remember telling her ‘I just know you’re going to be that girl at our ten-year reunion; the one the girls want to be and guys want to be with,’” she said.
“‘I expect you to show us all up, Mary Read.’”
April 19th, 2007 at 10:04 amJulia Pryde, age unknown, was a graduate student from Middletown, N.J.
She was an “exceptional student academically and personally,†said Saied Mostaghimi, chairman of the biological systems and engineering department where Pryde was seeking her master’s degree.
“She was the nicest person you ever met,†Mostaghimi told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
Last summer, Pryde had traveled to Ecuador to research water quality issues with a professor. She planned to return this summer for follow-up work, Mostaghimi said.
A 2001 graduate of Middletown North High School, Pryde was on the school’s swim team and played softball in two town leagues.
Her hometown has been touched by tragedy before, losing 37 current and former residents in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“The town pulls together in these situations. Everything that we can do for this family, we’ll see what can be done,†Middletown Mayor Gerard P. Scharfenberger said.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:05 amMichael Pohle, 23, of Flemington, N.J., was expected to graduate in a few weeks with a degree in biological sciences, said Craig Blanton, Hunterdon Central’s vice principal during the 2002 school year, when Pohle graduated.
“He had a bunch of job interviews and was all set to start his post-college life,†Blanton told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
At the high school, Pohle played on the football and lacrosse teams.
One of his old lacrosse coaches, Bob Shroeder, described him as “a good kid who did everything that good kids do.â€
“He tried to please,†Shroeder told the newspaper. “He was just a great kid.â€
April 19th, 2007 at 10:07 amErin Peterson, age unknown, graduated in 2006 from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., along with a second victim, Reema Samatha. That is the same high school that the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, graduated from three years earlier.
It was not known if Cho knew the victims.
Peterson was 6-foot-1 and played center for the school’s girls basketball team, helping lead it to a district championship.
“She could do a layup on anyone,†said Anna Richter, a high school teammate.
She recalled how Peterson’s parents attended nearly every game and were among the most enthusiastic fans.
Pat Deegan, Peterson’s high school coach, said he couldn’t remember a better leader.
“She was just a super child,†William Lloyd, Erin’s godfather, told the Washington City Paper.
“Her and her dad, man, you couldn’t separate them. He lost a child from cancer — a daughter, 8 years old. A week later, (Erin) was born.â€
Lloyd said that Erin and her father, Grafton Peterson, did part ways on one thing: pro football allegiances. “She was a Redskin,†he said. “He was a Cowboy.â€
April 19th, 2007 at 10:08 amMinal Panchal, 26, a first-year building science student from Mumbai, India, according to foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna.
She wanted to be an architect like her father, who died four years ago.
Panchal was very keen to go to the United States for postgraduate studies and thrilled when she gained admission last year, said Chetna Parekh, a friend who lives in the bustling middle-class Mumbai neighborhood of Borivali, where Panchal lived before coming to Virginia Tech.
“She was a brilliant student and very hardworking. She was focused on getting her degree and doing well.â€
Panchal was worried about her mother, Hansa, living alone and wanted her to come to the U.S., neighbor Jayshree Ajmane said. Hansa left earlier this month for New Jersey, where her sister and brother-in-law live.
Ajmane called Panchal a bright, polite girl who would help the neighborhood children with their schoolwork.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:09 amJuan Ortiz, 26, a graduate student in civil engineering from Puerto Rico, was killed while teaching a class, his father said.
Ortiz graduated magna cum laude from the Polytechnic University of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and arrived at Virginia Tech last August. He was married to a fellow student pursuing a teaching career, and they had planned to have a child soon.
“He was an extraordinary son,” his father, Juan Ramon, said. “On his wedding day, I told him … what I felt in my heart, I thanked him for being my son, it was special.”
Ortiz was also in a band with his father and other relatives. “He loved salsa dancing,” his father said.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:10 amDaniel O’Neil, 22, of Lincoln, R.I. A graduate student in environmental engineering, he also played guitar and wrote his own songs, which he posted on a Web site, http://www.residenthippy.com.
Friend Steve Craveiro described him as smart, responsible and a hard worker, someone who never got into trouble.
“He would come home from school over the summer and talk about projects, about building bridges and stuff like that,†Craveiro said. “He loved his family. He was pretty much destined to be extremely successful. He just didn’t deserve to have happen what happened.â€
O’Neil graduated in 2002 from Lincoln High School in Rhode Island and graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., before heading to Virginia Tech, where he was also a teaching assistant, Craveiro said.
A Lafayette publication said that while there O’Neil was vice president of the Arts Society. His high school yearbook noted he was on the cross country and outdoor track teams, the drama club and the National Honor Society, according to the Providence Journal.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:11 amLauren McCain, 20, of Hampton, Va., an undergraduate majoring in international studies.
On her MySpace page, McCain listed “the love of my life†as Jesus Christ.
Her family said McCain became a Christian some time ago.
“Her life since that time has been filled with His love that continued to overflow to touch everyone who knew her,†the family said in a statement.
Her uncle Jeff Elliott told The Oklahoman newspaper that she was an avid reader, was learning German and had almost mastered Latin. She was home-schooled, he said, and had worked at a department store for about a year to save money for college.
She spent several years of her childhood in Oklahoma, but her father’s Navy career also took the family to Florida, Texas and then to Virginia.
“Lauren had such a sweet innocent heart,” Jeanne Meadows, who attended church with McCain, wrote to MSNBC.com. “I can bet you at the last moment of her life she was most likely praying for the gunman and forgiving him.”
April 19th, 2007 at 10:13 amYep, these men and women, 19 years old some of them, are all cowards.
Never having been confronted with a weapon, never having seen people next to them have their faces blown off and blood gushing out of their heads, never feeling steel rip through their flesh, not understanding what was happening or watching their friends slaughtered like some Hollywood movie…
Yep, they’re all cowards. They deserved to die.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:16 amPatrick1:
April 19th, 2007 at 12:33 pmHow in God’s name would you KNOW how you would react in this kind of surprise attack? Perhaps you did not hear about the young man/student in the hospital with 3 gunshot wounds who got up right away upon hearing the gun shots and help block the door to his classroom and saved the lives of everyone in his class. Some people ACT and some people FREEZE in shock or disbelief. You are the real coward to attack the victims as “too passive and coddled”. You represent every thing that is wrong with you and your fellow right wing fanatics…all bluster and no integrity!
Well, I’ll give him one thing. They’re not children. A friend of mine who hadn’t been listening to the news too closely just admitted that for the first couple of days after the shooting, she thought it had taken place at a high school, just because of all the talk about the “kids” and what their parents were going through. It was crazy the way parents kept getting dragged into the story. I remember Kent State, and as tragic and unjust as those deaths were, they were treated as the deaths of adults. We’ve infantalized these ‘kids’. The 20’s are the new adolescense, at least if you’re at university. 19 year olds fighting and dying in Iraq are “men and women”.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:49 pmObviously, it was the liberal culture at VT that led to the carnage. Patrick has just as obviously never been to Blacksburg, Berkely it ain’t. In any event, apparently the students needed to face down gunfire just like Patrick’s conservative role models: W., rove, Cheney, Feith, Wolfowitz, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, DeLay, Cornyn, Rice, Hastert, McConnell, Hannity,et al. Google those fine brave role models of conservative bravery and see which of them ever voluntarily faced gunfire.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:52 pmsounds like the students were college GOP and had “other priorities”.
April 19th, 2007 at 2:22 pmHad a friend like Pat once. Always talking how bad he was. Black belt, carried a gun. Got his ass pistol whipped begging for his life in a bar he shouldn’t of been in. That would be Pat, know doubt. Had a gun pulled on me where I lived in Detroit. My very macho & right wing suburban friends looked like the were gonna piss their pants. I didn’t rush the guy, but I did convince him we weren’t worth the effort. We don’t know how the all students reacted. But I can make a guess from experience how Pat would. A steady diet of action films & right wing bravado a hero don’t make.
April 19th, 2007 at 2:54 pmpatrick1, I’m going to guess that neither You, this pantload Steyn, Derbyshire or Blake have ever had the experience of staring down the barrel of a gun. It is easy enough to run your mouth when you don’t know what the hell you are talking about. That you and the other aforementioned phony-tough assclowns could stoop so low as to defame the victims, living and dead tells me all i need to know about you:
tactless chronic masturbators with superhero fantasies who, for all your talk would soil yourselves if your life really was on the line
April 19th, 2007 at 8:16 pmAs someone who lived through a school shooting 18 years ago I can confirm that Patrick1 is an ignorant moron. He don’t know jack. Ignore him. However, I really appreciate that wingnut cut and pasters of GOP filth/talking points who confine their psychosis to internet forums. The worst harm psychos like Patrick1 can cause is evidenced by poor spelling, grammar and spewing hateful fantasies of manlihood. Let us hope all of the powerless, hateful, ignorant cowards among us find a voice on a forum of sensible people and take up residence as the ignorant troll asshole. Lives could be saved by our tolerance.
April 19th, 2007 at 8:44 pmIt’s truly sad we have such an underestimation of ourselves in tough situations. While I don’t know exactly what I’d do in such a situation, there’s nothing wrong with imagining such situations and thinking seriously about the different options before you.
Why not, some fine day, when you’re in a store, restaurant or workplace, think about all the options available to you, should you have to deal with a murderous maniac? Where can you run? What can you throw? What are ways you can deal with your instinctive fear? If you have some ideas imprinted in your brain in safety, then they may instinctively kick in, in a time of danger. There’s nothing right-wing, left-wing or macho about pondering scenarios ahead of time. It’s a pretty regular topic in martial arts studios.
I agree that none of this is any consolation, to those who had to bury their loved ones in the wake of such bloody treachery. I have little faith in any institutional solutions, though. I’m not willing to exchange even the least politically popular liberties for a dubious guarantee of safety by the state and corporation. I don’t know what I would have done, if I was in those students’ situation–I’m sure they did the best they could with what they had, in terms of physical, mental and emotional resources. I don’t know if I would have functioned any better, but it’s a lot more empowering to think about some relatively positive outcomes than to automatically assume total doom for every dangerous scenario.
Also, it’s not that easy scoring a bullseye with a gun, even at twenty yards. A retired cop tells me it becomes even less easy when a shooter’s concentration is disrupted. Just something to file for future reference. I hope & pray that pops into my mind, should such a situation arise. Maybe I’ll prevail, maybe I’ll die like a dog. But I have less of a chance of survival, if I don’t think about these things at all and just assume the government will protect me.
Finally, I doubt we’d be any safer without guns than with. History is replete with bloody massacres and repression which took place long before the invention of the gun. There may not have been any guns in the city of Rome during the reign of Caius Caligula, but to survive in that place at that time was to fear for one’s life every day.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:47 pmLiberals take away your freedom to protect yourself. They teach your children to meet force with reasoning at all times. I wonder how many parents of the dead have concealed carry permits. I can imagine their frustration. If the students would have even had mace on them they could have ruined this guys vision. I teach in a HS in Brooklyn NY. When a kid sprays pepper spray in the hall as a prank, it causes a tear gas chamber effect. You will not stay anywhere near the area. I hate to monday morning QB but the truth is that our youth has become too passive. One can of pepper spray would have done wonders. One concealed carry in that class and it would have been rounds going back out through the door they were entering in from.
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:07 amJust for anyone who second guesses the students for not fightingback think of this. I am a former Marine combat vet. I train fighters. A year ago, during one of the shootings outside the school where I teach, I heard an altercation start outside my office window. When I looked outside, a very small 15 year old was threatening what appeared to be a 17 year old. The 15 year old started shooting past the 17 year old’s head. The 17 year old just stared at him with courage as I ducked with my heart racing and my hands shaking. If I were armed I would have stayed right there because I would have been too shaky to do something right away. When someone is firing near you in a rage, you have a physiological reaction that you can’t control. Most people do. I have no idea why some do and some don’t. I always get rattled even when I fight back and win during any altercation. I suppose we inherit the ability to deal with that quick stress. I have never been able to control that fear, just able to fight through it. I am sure that most of the students at VT had that same feeling. Shaking with fear. It is so hard to function under that stress. Even for a trained former Infantry man.
April 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pmCan’t we get back to putting the responsibility back on the criminal here? This is utter ridiculousness and offensive.
0341: I’ve heard similair stories from police officers, no matter how trained or ‘macho’ you are there is no way you can tell how you will react in these situations, especially when they hit you unawares.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:08 pm